On the 18th July 1936 when the coup d’ état of the military rebels took place, they managed to control all of Galicia and provinces of the North of Spain such as Salamanca, León, Burgos, Logroño, Zamora, Pamplona and part of Zaragoza. Also, the Andalusian provinces of Seville and Cádiz and part of Extremadura, together with the territories of the North of Ãfrica, the Canary Islands, and the islands of Mallorca and Ibiza. The Republic managed to control the capital of Spain, Madrid, together with Catalonia, Valencia, the Basque Country, Asturias, Santander and almost all the centre of Spain, such as Toledo, Ciudad Real, and also Albacete, Murcia, Málaga, Granada, AlmerÃa...
 Thus, the main fronts were centred in the line separating Catalonia and Aragón, the North of Madrid and the front of Extremadura. The government of the Republic started to take measures to fight more efficiently against the rebel troops, and began a series of acts, the construction of aviation fields that were strategically located to allow them to attack the enemy zones. In the Mediterranean area between Valencia and Barcelona, there were no fields. La Senia, located half way between these two capital cities, and also near the islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, was the place chosen by the Ministry of Defence to construct an aviation field that was sufficiently big for the landing of both fighters and bombers. The part chosen to construct the field was located at the east of the municipality, where the land was flat, and it was only necessary to pull up the olives that were planted. Once it was constructed, both fighters and bombers arrived there to act in the Aragón front, and to keep watch on the Mediterranean Coast and the Balearic Islands. 
  At the beginning of 1938, the troops supporting Franco began an offensive directed to the Mediterranean Sea, whose objective was to divide the republican area and to isolate Catalonia. In April 1938, the nationalist troops arrived to Vinaroz, so La Senia fall in the hands of the nationalists, together with its aviation field. This was immediately occupied by the Condor Legion, and it was used to attack the front of the south of Valencia, and some months later it was used in the Battle of the Ebro, and later on, for the occupation of all Catalonia. You can say that in these times it was one of the most important aviation fields of the nationalist forces, both because of its size and because of its strategic situation.
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